Mueller: "We will review all planned investments, and what isn't absolutely vital will be canceled or delayed."

BERLIN (Bloomberg) -- Volkswagen Group CEO Matthias Mueller said the automaker will delay or cancel non-essential projects as pressure mounts to slash spending in the wake of the diesel-emissions scandal.

"We will review all planned investments, and what isn’t absolutely vital will be canceled or delayed," Mueller told some 20,000 employees today at the company's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany. "And that's why we will re-adjust our efficiency program. I will be completely clear: this won't be painless."

The company is exploring options from a simple software upgrade to outright replacing some cars. Fines may reach $7.4 billion in the U.S. alone, according to analysts from Sanford C. Bernstein.

VW could put a push to gain market share in the North America on hold as long as there is no clarity on the extent of the costs of fixing the cars and potential fines, said Jose Asumendi, a London-based analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The company outlined plans in March for an investment of about $1 billion to expand its vehicle assembly plant in Mexico's Puebla state. That work could face a delay, Asumendi said.

"It's going to to be tough to find projects they could chop that will actually move the needle," Asumendi said. "What they really need to do is get costs under control."

Labor leaders are pushing VW to reel in research and development spending to protect jobs, while management wants personnel expenses reduced as well, people familiar with the situation said before Mueller’s statement.

Other options include lowering purchasing expenses and reducing sponsorship activities, with the extent of the measures dependent on the cost of the cleanup, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private.

"We will pay extra attention to bonus payments to members of the management board," Bernd Osterloh, a supervisory board member and head of the works council, told employees at the today's meeting. All projects and investments will need to be examined, and “we will have to question everything that’s not economical,” he said.

VW may be forced to tighten an “incredibly inefficient” organization and lop funding out of a $17.4 billion r&d budget that was the world’s biggest last year, about equal to the combined figure for Apple and Google, said Arndt Ellinghorst, a London-based analyst with Evercore ISI.

Volkswagen’s r&d spending was higher than at Ford Motor Co. and General Motors combined.

“Where’s the innovation? Obviously not in diesel engines,” Ellinghorst said. “There’s a culture of spending and a lack of focus on efficiency in favor of striving to be bigger.”

Volkswagen’s personnel costs at 16.7 percent of sales are the highest since 1997, while purchasing costs are also at a peak, he said. Half the company’s board is composed of labor representatives, and more than 60,000 people work for VW in Wolfsburg.

Secure jobs

The government of Lower Saxony, where VW is based, also has an unusually strong position of leadership in the company and owns about one-fifth of its voting shares. The government must “work with all its strength to secure these jobs,” Lower Saxony Prime Minister Stephan Weil wrote employees in an Oct. 5 letter.

Discussions over savings at Volkswagen are in early stages as the company focuses on repairs to satisfy regulators, the people familiar with the situation said. The company has until tomorrow to present a plan for fixing some 2.8 million diesel vehicles it sold in Germany.

About 8 million of the Volkswagen cars that had software designed to cheat U.S. emissions tests were sold in Europe, the company told German lawmakers in an Oct. 2 letter.